Quicken Cloud Keeps Resetting

okcrealtor

Does anyone know why my Quicken Cloud would need to reset? I use Quicken for Mac, I have it installed on my laptop, desktop at work, and the iPhone app. Usually if I open one and the program is running on another machine it will just tell me that there is another version open, I can close that one and proceed normally. But I have had to reset my Quicken cloud several times lately, and each time I am forced to re-authenticate each account, which for 20 accounts takes forever. Not only that, but any brokerage type account will no be able to be linked and requires me too set it up as a new account. It's exceedingly frustrating, is there some way to prevent this?

MontanaKarl

When you say you run it on your laptop as well as your desktop at work … I'm guessing that these don't access the file via a local area network but rather via some cloud storage such as Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud etc?

Quicken Mac does not work with cloud storage and you could end up with a variety of issues from slow access speed to corruption to file size growth due to duplicatation of content within the file bundle. Cloud storage should only be used for backups…e.g., set your preferences to save the automatic backups to a cloud folder.

RickO

I will endorse what MontanaKarl says: don't store your Quicken file in the cloud. It will eventually lead to trouble. (The iPhone app is fine; that's not using the desktop file directly.)

Personally, I only make changes to my file on my home desktop, but I have a copy of the file on my laptop (moved there by restoring a backup made on the desktop) that I use only for reference. However, if I do anything** on the copy file that involves touching the server, when I open the file on the desktop, Quicken detects that the file's been modified elsewhere and requires that I reset the Quicken cloud. This is usually harmless, but you can sometimes end up with duplicate transactions being downloaded.

** Examples of "touching the server" include doing account updates, viewing the Connected Services or Mobile, Web & Alerts tab in Quicken Settings, etc.

Here's a safe procedure you can use if you want to be able to make changes to the file on both computers without storing the actual file in the cloud:

1. Go to Quicken > Preferences > Backup (on both computers) and turn on Automatic Backups.
2. Set the Backup Folder to a folder that is synced to the cloud (same cloud folder on both computers).
3. When you want to work in Quicken, instead of just launching Quicken or opening the local copy of the file, go to the (cloud) backups folder and double click the latest backup.
4. Quicken will ask you if you want to restore the file. Click Restore This File.
5. Quicken will ask you where you want to restore the file with the default location being that of desktop/laptop file and the file name have a "2" appended.
6. Remove the "2" from the name and click Restore.
7. You'll be asked if you want to replace the file. Click Replace.
8. You will now be working in a version of the file that is current as of the last backup.
9. When you quit Quicken, the lasted version will be saved as a backup to the cloud.
10. You can then repeat steps 3 through 7 to open it and work with it on either machine.

The above process may seem complicated at first, but once you do it a few times it will be second nature. Just be sure that you quit Quicken and let the backup file be saved each and every time you work in Quicken on either computer.